December 23, 2025 • 14 mins
We spoke with lead vocalist, keyboardist, and original member, Lonnie Jordan, and manager and producer, Jerry Goldstein, from the band War about the group's first holiday song, (Yes It’s) Christmas.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Good morning, thank you for listening to Community Access. I'm
Alison de Murz. It's my pleasure to have with me
this morning. Lonnie Jordan, lead vocalist and keyboardist of the
group War and Jerry Goldstein, manager and producer who helped
created the group with them. Good morning gentlemen.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Good morning Alis, and good morning Alison.
Speaker 1 (00:22):
So you have this song called Yes It's Christmas and
it's a take on another song. You did tell me
the whole story behind it.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
Jerry Goldstein will tell you because he's the one who
was hammered by the record label to put out a
Christmas song, which we've never done before, and this was
the opportunity to do it. He had this idea of
using summer and started writing the lyrics and I didn't
think it was gonna yea. I didn't do anything for
(00:52):
me and until I decided, until he told me to
re do the vocal as a Christmas song, I said,
h okay, not like something's there and then there it
to you the red Yeah. Well, for years they've been
telling us we should do a Christmas song and we tried,
you know, we tried thinking about it just wasn't our thing.
(01:14):
We're creative. We create our own music basically, and we
couldn't feel the Christmas thing yet. And then one night
I just thought about it and I said, you know what,
why don't we take Summer and made Christmas lyrics with
it and see what it feels like. And I started
writing it down and Monnie and I started talking about it.
(01:35):
He didn't think it was a great idea until we
actually wrote it and describe what Christmas was about. And
he went out and we went in the studio and
he sang it, and all of a sudden, we looked
at each other, like, Wow, that's really good. So we
brought it to the record company that they were excited,
(01:56):
and so we made a video and we made a
lyric video. Here we are. You know, yes, it's Christmas
and we don't do traditional Christmas songs. We can't do
that lad Night and jingle builds. It's just not our thing,
and we just like to do our thing, our thing.
That's it. This is our thing. California Christmas basically, yep,
(02:18):
it's the vibe of California.
Speaker 1 (02:20):
But the world to the world, well, the words fit perfectly,
didn't they And take out Summer put in the word
Christmas the same amount of syllables. It was just perfect.
Speaker 2 (02:31):
It works great, and we describe Christmas instead of summer
from heat to cold worldwide.
Speaker 1 (02:38):
So how can people listen to the song or get
the song?
Speaker 2 (02:42):
Hopefully the radio is playing it, by the way, our
instore play it. The record company to us and the
instore plays amazing. We're like getting you know, through Christmas
shopping and things like that. All the install plays really good.
Radio is starting to play it, and you know you
can get it on Spotify, YouTube and whatever. You want
to watch the video, watch it on YouTube, do it
(03:02):
on Spotify.
Speaker 1 (03:04):
The video is great. You guys are dressed up with
your Santa hats and you're playing along and you look great,
you sound great. How many years has it been now
to be in war?
Speaker 2 (03:13):
Over fifty five years and counting. Yeah, it's been a
great journey and I don't plan to stop. And we
travel the world pretty much all the time. And say,
young doing that this.
Speaker 1 (03:26):
Tour that's coming up, will you be singing the Christmas
Song at least through December.
Speaker 2 (03:31):
Well, we have a show at YouTube Theater on December twentieth,
and we'll probably premire it actually because we haven't sung
it like yet, so we'll probably premire it there. That's
our Christmas.
Speaker 1 (03:44):
Show, beautiful. Jerry, you wrote the lyrics, What inspired you?
How'd you come up with them?
Speaker 2 (03:50):
It just happens. And I don't even know how this happens.
After time tjammed it, you know, it's like it's just things.
Just the concept came to me and then wrote itself basically,
you know, once I figured out what the concept boy is,
that this was going to be a Christmas record to
the summer, then it just sort of wrote itself, trying
to follow the other song in a way, but only
(04:12):
with Christmas lyrics, and it works. It's pretty much like
our fans. Our fans really inspire us to write songs.
That's why we have a hard time doing traditional songs
and creating our own music comes out of the jams.
And that's basically what Jerry did with this song and
that even summer, cause this that was a jam and
(04:35):
now we changed it to Christmas. That's a jam, so
we just jam it, jam it, Lonnie.
Speaker 1 (04:45):
I want to know how your voice stayed the same
all these years, well.
Speaker 2 (04:50):
Singing all the time, touring year round, and of course
my wife is a vegan chef. I'm not supposed to
say that that she's helped my voy. It's along the way,
believe me, because I would say, had I not gotten
my rest and eaten food, the good food, proper food
to split for my throat and my stomach, believe me,
(05:12):
I'd be talking to you like this.
Speaker 1 (05:14):
You're right, you're right.
Speaker 2 (05:16):
Especially a seventy seven Wow.
Speaker 1 (05:18):
God bless you. Yeah, you're right because I interview a
lot of older artists, and a lot of them have,
you know, vocal cord issues. So wow, when you just sang,
I was like, holy cow, what a voice. Looking back
at these fifty five years together, did you ever believe
it would come to this?
Speaker 2 (05:36):
Not really, We never thought about it. Actually, never thought
about it and just looked at it. Yeah, exactly. That's
the beauty of what this is is that it's always
been organic from the beginning, living in the moment and
just do what we do. It's really we do what
we do, and I'm glad that people out there like
what we do and they keep coming to see us
(05:57):
and keep buying records, you keep listening to streaming. We
don't stage anything. In fact, we don't even we don't
have any tracks. We don't sing the tracks. Everything is
still live organically on stage and we'll never sing two
tracks or anything like that. In fact, back in the
day when we used to do Soul Trains and all
(06:19):
these different TV shows, everybody used to lip sing to
the record, we actually played it live. Yeah, some of
the few groups that were able to do that. Not
just Soul Train, but Midnight Special in Concert, Diner, Shore Show,
Get Clark Clark, Yeah, yeah, Mike Douglas Show, all those shows.
Back then, everything was live. We demanded to play live.
(06:43):
We did not one the lips think because we didn't
know why the lives we look stupid lip sinking? Yeah,
we It didn't work for us, No, it didn't.
Speaker 1 (06:51):
And do you have a favorite song that you guys perform?
Speaker 2 (06:55):
Yeah? Why can't We be Friends? Spill the one Slipping
in the Darkness? Neil Baby bro all day music? Should
I go on Rose against It?
Speaker 1 (07:03):
So you don't just have one, you have several that
you love that's right and more.
Speaker 2 (07:08):
And still counting and the brand new album Crimen Up.
Speaker 1 (07:12):
Do you have any favorite artists of the past or
the president that you really like?
Speaker 2 (07:16):
I love all of them because everyone brings something different
to the table, all genres of music. I love. That's
why we as a group, as War, We're able to
play all different types of genres of music, all different
genres of music ourselves because we've always been exposed to
(07:37):
so many different genres of music Gospel, country, and Western,
not to mention Latin, jazz, classical. I mean, the list
goes on. We bring all that to the table. So
I love all the different groups, all the different genres
of music. It's all good. It's all a form of art.
Speaker 1 (07:57):
One last question for you. Where did you come up
with the name War?
Speaker 2 (08:02):
Oh, it's your fault, it's their fault. Yeahs Erica and
my fault, Eric Burdon and my fault, basically, and really,
Eric and I was trying to figure out what the
name of the band should be because the original band
the name was night Shift, which we didn't think was
right for what we were doing. So Eric and I
figured out, let's call him War. Everybody's talking peace and love,
(08:25):
you know, back in sixty nine here, and we figured
that if we called the group War, nobody would ever
forget the name, and sure enough, nobody else did forget
the name. And we used to get very strange phone
calls and people would tell us how could you do that?
You know, and we just felt that that was the
right name for this band. So obviously it worked, and
(08:47):
before the Ninth Crip we were called the Creators. But
going back to getting back to the name War, we
eventually came across a scene and that when people started
throwing dark set, I'm saying, like you said, like Jerry said,
how can you do that? We let people know that, Yeah,
we are raising war against wars that's going on across
(09:09):
the water in our own backyard. And this war does
not draw blood from any one. We don't have guns
and shoot bullets at people. Our choice of weapons is
our instruments. And what we shoot excuse that word shoot,
excuse my language, but it shoots rhythms, melodies, and most
(09:31):
of all, harmonies.
Speaker 1 (09:33):
Love that. Love that. I'm speaking with Lonnie Jordan, lead
vocalist and keyboardist of the band War, and Jerry Goldstein,
manager and producer, and he helped create the group with them, gentlemen,
thank you so much for being here this morning. I'm
so starstruck. It was so awesome speaking with you.
Speaker 2 (09:50):
Speaking of star we did receive the Hollywood.
Speaker 1 (09:54):
Walk of Fame And how did that feel like a star?
Speaker 2 (10:00):
Wonderful? It felt real good. Just that's the first time
I felt like a star, to be honest with you,
because I've never been down that path of following the
Hollywood scene and nothing like that. I've watched other people
on TZ magazine, you know, before the new technology came,
you know, sell phones and all that. But to receive
(10:21):
the star on the Walk of Fame, man, that to
me was very exciting. I just never thought that would
ever happen.
Speaker 1 (10:28):
After singing on the Dick Clark Show all these different
places all over the world, that star was like, Wow,
I really made it.
Speaker 2 (10:37):
Yeap, kind of kind of a realization.
Speaker 1 (10:41):
Yeah, the song is Yes, It's Christmas. We're going to
play it for you now.
Speaker 3 (10:55):
Right down the radio plane, all the saw sat the
meeting children at the mall.
Speaker 4 (11:23):
Christmas trees and standing causes.
Speaker 5 (11:32):
Chris, Christmas time is Chrisma, A time us chrismas.
Speaker 6 (11:54):
The best time, his soul dreaming, sanders on his way,
lots of special delities as.
Speaker 7 (12:13):
Life, Christmas morning, magic fields with Christmas presents open everywhere.
Speaker 8 (12:35):
Calls it Chris, Christmas is us christ.
Speaker 4 (12:53):
This Chris.
Speaker 3 (12:58):
The best time.
Speaker 7 (13:21):
From the ealthyc and now in temper to and everywhere under,
I'm telling you.
Speaker 6 (13:39):
Family's old spay.
Speaker 2 (13:48):
Christmas time is the best time.
Speaker 4 (13:52):
Everything causes. The crystals stand. The screams by far called
(14:15):
and scream a crystals words. Creams by fisc
Good morning, thank you for listening to Community Access. I'm
Alison de Murz. It's my pleasure to have with me
this morning. Lonnie Jordan, lead vocalist and keyboardist of the
group War and Jerry Goldstein, manager and producer who helped
created the group with them. Good morning gentlemen.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Good morning Alis, and good morning Alison.
Speaker 1 (00:22):
So you have this song called Yes It's Christmas and
it's a take on another song. You did tell me
the whole story behind it.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
Jerry Goldstein will tell you because he's the one who
was hammered by the record label to put out a
Christmas song, which we've never done before, and this was
the opportunity to do it. He had this idea of
using summer and started writing the lyrics and I didn't
think it was gonna yea. I didn't do anything for
(00:52):
me and until I decided, until he told me to
re do the vocal as a Christmas song, I said,
h okay, not like something's there and then there it
to you the red Yeah. Well, for years they've been
telling us we should do a Christmas song and we tried,
you know, we tried thinking about it just wasn't our thing.
(01:14):
We're creative. We create our own music basically, and we
couldn't feel the Christmas thing yet. And then one night
I just thought about it and I said, you know what,
why don't we take Summer and made Christmas lyrics with
it and see what it feels like. And I started
writing it down and Monnie and I started talking about it.
(01:35):
He didn't think it was a great idea until we
actually wrote it and describe what Christmas was about. And
he went out and we went in the studio and
he sang it, and all of a sudden, we looked
at each other, like, Wow, that's really good. So we
brought it to the record company that they were excited,
(01:56):
and so we made a video and we made a
lyric video. Here we are. You know, yes, it's Christmas
and we don't do traditional Christmas songs. We can't do
that lad Night and jingle builds. It's just not our thing,
and we just like to do our thing, our thing.
That's it. This is our thing. California Christmas basically, yep,
(02:18):
it's the vibe of California.
Speaker 1 (02:20):
But the world to the world, well, the words fit perfectly,
didn't they And take out Summer put in the word
Christmas the same amount of syllables. It was just perfect.
Speaker 2 (02:31):
It works great, and we describe Christmas instead of summer
from heat to cold worldwide.
Speaker 1 (02:38):
So how can people listen to the song or get
the song?
Speaker 2 (02:42):
Hopefully the radio is playing it, by the way, our
instore play it. The record company to us and the
instore plays amazing. We're like getting you know, through Christmas
shopping and things like that. All the install plays really good.
Radio is starting to play it, and you know you
can get it on Spotify, YouTube and whatever. You want
to watch the video, watch it on YouTube, do it
(03:02):
on Spotify.
Speaker 1 (03:04):
The video is great. You guys are dressed up with
your Santa hats and you're playing along and you look great,
you sound great. How many years has it been now
to be in war?
Speaker 2 (03:13):
Over fifty five years and counting. Yeah, it's been a
great journey and I don't plan to stop. And we
travel the world pretty much all the time. And say,
young doing that this.
Speaker 1 (03:26):
Tour that's coming up, will you be singing the Christmas
Song at least through December.
Speaker 2 (03:31):
Well, we have a show at YouTube Theater on December twentieth,
and we'll probably premire it actually because we haven't sung
it like yet, so we'll probably premire it there. That's
our Christmas.
Speaker 1 (03:44):
Show, beautiful. Jerry, you wrote the lyrics, What inspired you?
How'd you come up with them?
Speaker 2 (03:50):
It just happens. And I don't even know how this happens.
After time tjammed it, you know, it's like it's just things.
Just the concept came to me and then wrote itself basically,
you know, once I figured out what the concept boy is,
that this was going to be a Christmas record to
the summer, then it just sort of wrote itself, trying
to follow the other song in a way, but only
(04:12):
with Christmas lyrics, and it works. It's pretty much like
our fans. Our fans really inspire us to write songs.
That's why we have a hard time doing traditional songs
and creating our own music comes out of the jams.
And that's basically what Jerry did with this song and
that even summer, cause this that was a jam and
(04:35):
now we changed it to Christmas. That's a jam, so
we just jam it, jam it, Lonnie.
Speaker 1 (04:45):
I want to know how your voice stayed the same
all these years, well.
Speaker 2 (04:50):
Singing all the time, touring year round, and of course
my wife is a vegan chef. I'm not supposed to
say that that she's helped my voy. It's along the way,
believe me, because I would say, had I not gotten
my rest and eaten food, the good food, proper food
to split for my throat and my stomach, believe me,
(05:12):
I'd be talking to you like this.
Speaker 1 (05:14):
You're right, you're right.
Speaker 2 (05:16):
Especially a seventy seven Wow.
Speaker 1 (05:18):
God bless you. Yeah, you're right because I interview a
lot of older artists, and a lot of them have,
you know, vocal cord issues. So wow, when you just sang,
I was like, holy cow, what a voice. Looking back
at these fifty five years together, did you ever believe
it would come to this?
Speaker 2 (05:36):
Not really, We never thought about it. Actually, never thought
about it and just looked at it. Yeah, exactly. That's
the beauty of what this is is that it's always
been organic from the beginning, living in the moment and
just do what we do. It's really we do what
we do, and I'm glad that people out there like
what we do and they keep coming to see us
(05:57):
and keep buying records, you keep listening to streaming. We
don't stage anything. In fact, we don't even we don't
have any tracks. We don't sing the tracks. Everything is
still live organically on stage and we'll never sing two
tracks or anything like that. In fact, back in the
day when we used to do Soul Trains and all
(06:19):
these different TV shows, everybody used to lip sing to
the record, we actually played it live. Yeah, some of
the few groups that were able to do that. Not
just Soul Train, but Midnight Special in Concert, Diner, Shore Show,
Get Clark Clark, Yeah, yeah, Mike Douglas Show, all those shows.
Back then, everything was live. We demanded to play live.
(06:43):
We did not one the lips think because we didn't
know why the lives we look stupid lip sinking? Yeah,
we It didn't work for us, No, it didn't.
Speaker 1 (06:51):
And do you have a favorite song that you guys perform?
Speaker 2 (06:55):
Yeah? Why can't We be Friends? Spill the one Slipping
in the Darkness? Neil Baby bro all day music? Should
I go on Rose against It?
Speaker 1 (07:03):
So you don't just have one, you have several that
you love that's right and more.
Speaker 2 (07:08):
And still counting and the brand new album Crimen Up.
Speaker 1 (07:12):
Do you have any favorite artists of the past or
the president that you really like?
Speaker 2 (07:16):
I love all of them because everyone brings something different
to the table, all genres of music. I love. That's
why we as a group, as War, We're able to
play all different types of genres of music, all different
genres of music ourselves because we've always been exposed to
(07:37):
so many different genres of music Gospel, country, and Western,
not to mention Latin, jazz, classical. I mean, the list
goes on. We bring all that to the table. So
I love all the different groups, all the different genres
of music. It's all good. It's all a form of art.
Speaker 1 (07:57):
One last question for you. Where did you come up
with the name War?
Speaker 2 (08:02):
Oh, it's your fault, it's their fault. Yeahs Erica and
my fault, Eric Burdon and my fault, basically, and really,
Eric and I was trying to figure out what the
name of the band should be because the original band
the name was night Shift, which we didn't think was
right for what we were doing. So Eric and I
figured out, let's call him War. Everybody's talking peace and love,
(08:25):
you know, back in sixty nine here, and we figured
that if we called the group War, nobody would ever
forget the name, and sure enough, nobody else did forget
the name. And we used to get very strange phone
calls and people would tell us how could you do that?
You know, and we just felt that that was the
right name for this band. So obviously it worked, and
(08:47):
before the Ninth Crip we were called the Creators. But
going back to getting back to the name War, we
eventually came across a scene and that when people started
throwing dark set, I'm saying, like you said, like Jerry said,
how can you do that? We let people know that, Yeah,
we are raising war against wars that's going on across
(09:09):
the water in our own backyard. And this war does
not draw blood from any one. We don't have guns
and shoot bullets at people. Our choice of weapons is
our instruments. And what we shoot excuse that word shoot,
excuse my language, but it shoots rhythms, melodies, and most
(09:31):
of all, harmonies.
Speaker 1 (09:33):
Love that. Love that. I'm speaking with Lonnie Jordan, lead
vocalist and keyboardist of the band War, and Jerry Goldstein,
manager and producer, and he helped create the group with them, gentlemen,
thank you so much for being here this morning. I'm
so starstruck. It was so awesome speaking with you.
Speaker 2 (09:50):
Speaking of star we did receive the Hollywood.
Speaker 1 (09:54):
Walk of Fame And how did that feel like a star?
Speaker 2 (10:00):
Wonderful? It felt real good. Just that's the first time
I felt like a star, to be honest with you,
because I've never been down that path of following the
Hollywood scene and nothing like that. I've watched other people
on TZ magazine, you know, before the new technology came,
you know, sell phones and all that. But to receive
(10:21):
the star on the Walk of Fame, man, that to
me was very exciting. I just never thought that would
ever happen.
Speaker 1 (10:28):
After singing on the Dick Clark Show all these different
places all over the world, that star was like, Wow,
I really made it.
Speaker 2 (10:37):
Yeap, kind of kind of a realization.
Speaker 1 (10:41):
Yeah, the song is Yes, It's Christmas. We're going to
play it for you now.
Speaker 3 (10:55):
Right down the radio plane, all the saw sat the
meeting children at the mall.
Speaker 4 (11:23):
Christmas trees and standing causes.
Speaker 5 (11:32):
Chris, Christmas time is Chrisma, A time us chrismas.
Speaker 6 (11:54):
The best time, his soul dreaming, sanders on his way,
lots of special delities as.
Speaker 7 (12:13):
Life, Christmas morning, magic fields with Christmas presents open everywhere.
Speaker 8 (12:35):
Calls it Chris, Christmas is us christ.
Speaker 4 (12:53):
This Chris.
Speaker 3 (12:58):
The best time.
Speaker 7 (13:21):
From the ealthyc and now in temper to and everywhere under,
I'm telling you.
Speaker 6 (13:39):
Family's old spay.
Speaker 2 (13:48):
Christmas time is the best time.
Speaker 4 (13:52):
Everything causes. The crystals stand. The screams by far called
(14:15):
and scream a crystals words. Creams by fisc
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